WATCH YOUR PENNIES
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:
“Know what works good?”
homeless Earl asked Mike Barnicle of
the Boston Globe last November, as
Barnicle researched a feature on panhandling.
“Get a can and cover it with pictures
of hurt dogs. People give you
money: they think it’s for hurt dogs.
The ‘feed the family’ sign, that don’t get
you anywhere near as much as a picture
of a hurt dog.”
Pioneered decades ago by the
March of Dimes, the counter change can
is a staple of grassroots fundraising,
especially important to small town
humane societies and neighborhood rescue
groups, who have learned that the
regulars at restaurants and coffee shops
will often chip in to help the feral cats
around the dumpster. The secret, agree
experts, is having lots of attractive cans
out in lots of locations––and visiting
them often, to avoid losses to petty theft.